Mike Pirnat

Because I have to go back to work in the morning.

We are returned from Stratford; details to follow when I am awake enough.

Since I haven't posted in a couple of days, here's the recap on the weekend.

• Friday night we watched Ran -- What an incredible movie, on an incredibly bad DVD (hard subtitles, crappy transfer, and if you opt to just play the movie, you can't do any chapter jumping, and it won't tell you how far into the film you are or how much remains). I will have to replace my copy with the new remastered version that is out this month. Still, excellent movie, even though the end is overwhelmingly depressing.
• Saturday during the day -- we finally found a console table for our foyer! The proper combination of style, finish, presence of a drawer, and not-stupid-lookingness finally crossed our path. So, in six to eight weeks, it's another piece of furniture (collect them all), hooray!!
• Saturday evening -- we ate dinner at The Harp, an Irish restaurant sort of thing. I gorged myself on their steak boxty (mmm), and to everyone's surprise (and my eventual dismay) I ate the whole thing. Tasty! There were enough other things that I was having a hard time choosing between that I think I will definitely be back (albeit with slightly less gluttony I should hope). After that, all in attendance whisked away to pick up tickets for...
• Saturday night -- we caught the second ever showing of Blue Sky Transmission, a play based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, over at Cleveland Public Theatre. Our friend Patricia was one of the writers who collaborated on this ambitious project. Heather and her husband Bob came all the way from Deerfield with a friend from Austria, and Jules and her mom came along, so it was all a great big to-do. The play itself was interesting, though way too avant garde for me. But there were moments that utterly capitvated me, and for those I am thankful.
• Sunday -- Vengeance of the Boxty! I tried to get some programming done, but failed utterly, and mostly spent the day moping about feeling like I was going to be horribly, explosively ill. We had a nice Italian dinner, though, to go with the premiere of the Sopranos. I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't really feel like that episode was worth the wait. Oh well. Hopefully this season gets better at some point (hopefully soon).
• Monday -- back to work, back to that soul-crushing feeling of "I'm never going to get it done in time, I'm doomed, doomed, dooooooomed!!!" I like my new folding screen thing, though. It definitely does help to wallow in despair without having to be distracted by passers-by and other office ilk.

In the mean time, I continue to tinker on mix CD's and try to ignore work while I'm not there.

The good news is, it's a short week for me. We leave Thursday morning for Stratford, Ontario, to attend the Shakespeare Festival. Let's hear it for tragedies, huzzah!!

I'm terribly optimistic about my workload, can't you tell?

I have been bad and not working late into the night as I had planned.

I have been bad and not worked on weekends as I had planned.

This is going to have to change soon since I get so damnably little done whilst I am actually in the office. It's just too damned distracting.

I bought a three-panel folding screen type thing tonight; hopefully that will cut down on some of the visual distraction brought about by only having 3 cube walls. You should have seen us trying to get it into the back of my Jetta, though... *chuckle* It was the first time I'd ever had to move the rear seats around, and it was quite a "learning experience".

gieves is en route to return my CD's that she borrowed for her excellent 9/11 memorial show (oh, there she is now -- hi!).

Must dash -- dinner is almost done, and then it's movie time -- tonight's feature is Ran, Kurosawa's feudal Japan retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear. Kind of heavy for a Friday night, I know, but we're going to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival next weekend to see Lear and all three parts of the War of the Roses (Henry VI 1 & 2, Richard III). Yeah, it'll be a real pick-me-up weekend. :-)